In a couple of weeks, the 185th Session of the Northern Illinois Conference of the UMC will convene at the Renaissance Center in Schaumburg. One of the major highlights of Annual Conference every year, if not THE highlight, is the ordination ceremony. This year to be held on the evening of Sunday, June 16. For many of the ordinands this is the joyous culmination of a long, sometimes painful, always expensive journey of faith. Their families, friends, and congregants will gather to celebrate this major milestone. Their clergy colleagues will all process in, dressed in their finest clergy robes and stoles. The sense of love, pride and community is palpable. Towards the beginning of the ceremony, the presiding bishop will ask the gathered assembly if they find the candidates worthy, and then comes the enthusiastic response: Yes! Worthy!! As everyone rises to their feet and wildly applauds and hoots words of congratulations. 

One of the questions the ordinands had to answer over and over and over again is to tell their “call story.” IT is the story of how God called them into ministry and how they responded. Virtually every one of the call stories I have ever heard, including my own, begins with resistance to that call. They tell of a growing awareness that maybe, just maybe, God is calling them into a live of service through ordained ministry. Some feel called to serving in a local church and others feel their call will best be answered in some kind of specialized ministry, like counseling or chaplaincy. 

There is often a time of struggle and uncertainty as they strive to figure out and understand exactly what it is that God is saying to them and what it is God wants them to do with their lives. Saying yes to God’s call rarely is the immediate response. It takes time to understand what God is to us as God most often communicates these messages in what Scripture has called a “still, small voice.” And there is often a great deal of fear and trepidation when it really dawns on them exactly what it is God is asking of them and the weight and cost of saying yes to that call. It is not unusual for persons to repeatedly and firmly say no to God and what God is asking of them. But here is the thing that I and all those ordinands have learned: God is persistent and rarely, if ever, takes no for an answer. 

Perhaps you have come to that realization in your life as well. For God’s calls all of us in different ways and to different tasks and roles. We will not all be ordained, but we will all be called to do something to extend God’s love to those around us and to work collectively to reshape the world around us to bring it into alignment with God’s will. People will resist this call, too. Not willing to take the risks that being God’s ambassador and messenger in the world will demand of them. But again God is persistent.

So, it was with Samuel. Remember what our passage told us about Samuel? “Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known.” So it is understandable that Samuel did not understand what was happening. He was assigned to care for the aging Eli. So when he heard his name being called out in the night, naturally he would assume that it was Eli who was calling him. 

Being the dutiful young man that he surely was, Samuel hurried to Eli to see what he needed. But Eli told him that he had not called him and that he should go back to his bed and lie down. So he did. But God being persistent, called him again and again Samuel went to Eli and again Eli told him that he had not called him and would he please just get some sleep. When it happened a third time, Eli (not Samuel) realized what was happening and explained to Samuel that it was God who was calling him and that the next time he heard God call him he should respond by saying: 

“Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’”

Now, I do not know what time Samuel’s night time encounter with God occurred, but in my life it seems that God almost always wants to communicate with me around 3 am. I keep trying to tell God that I will be more awake and better able to understand and respond at 3 pm, but God seems to be determined to have these “conversations” with me at 3 am. So, I strive to listen. I try to understand. And when I am fully awake I try to remember what it is God was saying to me. Sometimes these night time encounters bring clarity with something I have been wrestling with and sometimes they challenge and nudge me to do something I have been resisting or to even go in a different direction than I had planned ~ remember it was in a dream that God told Joseph to take Mary and the baby Jesus and go home by a different route. Joseph listened to the promptings of God and did as God directed keeping his young family safe.

Throughout the course of my life I have learned that it is always important to pay attention to what I call divine nudgings. You know: those nagging feelings that there is something you need to do that you try hard to ignore or just simply get too busy to heed. I always tell people that when we are consistently given a nudge to do something that we would be wise to pay attention those nudgings. I believe they are one of the ways that God chooses to communicate with us. 

I often have people tell me that they kept the feeling that there was someone they should reach out to and check in on, and every time they have followed that feeling and made that call or sent that email or text they have been profoundly glad that they did. Sometimes it was simply good to talk with someone they haven’t seen in awhile and get caught up, but other times there was something going on in the life of the person and they really needed some help to make it through. 

So, if you have a sense that God is calling your name, nudging you, prompting you to answer a call or make a call, you would be wise to do as Eli commanded the young Samuel to do: Go find a quiet place, lie down or at least sit down, be still and wait. And, then when that small voice begins to bubble up within you, as it surely will ~ because, again, God is relentlessly persistent,  respond as Samuel did: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

Amen.

INVITATION AND BLESSING:

This week I encourage you to carve out some quiet, private time.

Time to just sit and be still. In the stillness ask God what God is trying to say to you and what it is God wants you to do. Listen for that still small voice in which God most often speaks. Much of a whisper than a shout.

And when you hear that voice, when you sense what it is God prompting you to do may your response, Here I am, Lord. I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.

In the name of the Father, who calls us, and the Son, who mentors and guides us, and the Spirit who empower us. Amen.